Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the way in which texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise. One of pleasures that audiences experience is the joy of recognition. One form of this pleasure comes in recognising the reference in one media text to other media texts. This process of referencing is called intertextuality.

A good example of intertextuality is parodies, and one which I discovered when searching through music videos was the two below. The first one is Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve, which was made first. Then, take a look at Fat Les' Vindaloo and see if you can spot any similarities!

Fat Les pretty much takes the mick out of the Verve for the whole of this music video, and it's pretty funny to watch, especially if you're familiar with the original music video from The Verve. This parody probably attracted a lot of media attention and is probably why it was such a big hit with the footballing world, as it was obviously made for the England football team for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Another example of intertextuality is s song by 30 Seconds To Mars called bury me. Have a watch and see if you can pick up the clues!

This obviously is very similar to the fantastic film 'The Shining', and it hasn't been done as a parody by 30 Seconds To Mars, but more of a pastiche. Pastiche is the imitation of a text's features by another text.  It could be in the same style of feature similar motifs or even be a copy of the original. This video relates a lot back to The Shining, and again if you are familiar with the film you would have picked this up immediately.

In terms of our music video, we haven't made plans to use blindingly obvious intertextuality, but it may be that we decide to use some sublte bits of intertextuality within the video, which might be harder to spot.